The Trump administration is fast-tracking a permit needed by Enbridge Inc. to build a disputed pipeline tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac in northern Michigan.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in a public notice that it would expedite a permit for the project following an executive order by the president declaring a national energy emergency. It comes as pipelines have been exceedingly difficult to build in the U.S. because of a slow federal permitting process and opposition from environmentalists.
The pipeline has been operating since the 1950s, transporting up to 540,000 daily barrels of crude and natural gas liquids across Lake Michigan and Lake Huron en route to refineries in the US Midwest, Ontario and Quebec. Enbridge has been pushing to encase it in a tunnel to prevent spills into the Great Lakes, which more than 40 million people depend on for drinking water.
The tunnel project, however, has has embroiled for years in court fights with environmentalists, indigenous groups and state officials, including Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who have pushed to shut down the pipeline altogether.
The project would require boring a 21-foot-diameter, 3.6 mile (5.8 kilometer) long tunnel underneath the bed of the Straits of Mackinac, according to the U.S. Army Corps. In a statement, Enbridge said it’s designed to make the pipeline safer and help deliver crucial energy supplies to the Great Lakes region. The company submitted its permit applications to state and federal regulators five years ago.
Proponents of the project, including the Institute for Energy Research and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, have urged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to support approving it on national security grounds, arguing in a February letter that the environmental review for the tunnel had been going on for nearly four years.
The Sierra Club criticized the decision to expedite the tunnel permit in a statement Wednesday, saying President Donald Trump’s national energy emergency is a “sham” and that the pipeline poses an existential threat to the Great Lakes.
Ari Natter and Robert Tuttle, Bloomberg News
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